The Iron Maiden
by the stargate time traveller
Summary: Non Magic AU. Tracy and Harry are muggle thieves, and an old enemy has returned.


Disclaimer - I don't own Harry Potter.

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It was dark when the couple returned to their house. They were noticed by one or two of the neighbors, but no one really concerned themselves about where the couple returning had been doing, but the couple were not worried since it was not against the law to arrive home late. No-one in the neighborhood would've even suspected the young couple that drove into the drive of their house of any wrongdoing, then again they rarely ever spoke to the neighbors in all the time they'd lived there. It didn't really matter much to the couple, they were young, had exciting jobs, and they were often out most of the time. They weren't married, the neighbors knew that but the couple didn't really care what they thought. It was none of their business, and as long as the neighbors didn't poke their noses into their affairs the man and woman would leave them alone. As the man got out of the driver's seat to open the garage the young woman next to him watched silently as he finished opening the garage door and then slid back into the drivers seat and drove the car inside.

"I can't believe we got out of there in one piece," Tracy commented with a sigh as she took off her jacket and threw it carelessly at the stairs in the little house she shared with Harry. "Neither can I," he said, leaning back against the wall, closing the door, with a sigh.

"Well, we're a good 3 million quid richer than we were when we started."

"Would've been nicer if we'd netted the other 2 million with that picture, Harry," Tracy commented whilst she slipped her shoes off.

"That's what happens when you trust a gang," Harry remarked as he took off his own shoes. "It was just nice they followed the plan we gave them and took the fall when the police came." Tracy nodded in agreement.

No-one in the neighborhood would've imagined they were living next to a pair of thieves, but it didn't bother Harry Potter or Tracy Davis all that much. They left the neighbors strictly alone even if once or twice some of them rubbed the couple the wrong way. Harry and Tracy had been thieves since they could crawl, maybe even before then. They'd grown up in a foster home, and joy of joys it was slap bang in a demilitarised zone. That place was filled to the brim with drug dealers, prostitutes and pimps, even the occasional murderer, con artists and burglars. It wasn't a place decent hard working people should've lived. The place had long since been cleaned up, but its effects still lived on today in the lives of the kids who were unlucky enough to have grown up in the vicinity.

It made no sense that anyone who gave a damn about kids would even think of letting kids grow up anywhere near the place, but somebody did. It made no difference really; dozens of kids had moved on with their lives. Now some of them were con artists having picked things up along the way, and while some of their cons left much to be desired and really weren't all that amazing, at least they were alive. Other kids had fallen down the slippery slopes of alcoholism, drug addiction, and prostitution though sometimes those three were mixed. Tracy felt gratified that Harry had been there when she'd started growing up in a home where the kids, especially girls like herself, sometimes caught the bad habits of others.

Tracy had lost count of the girls who started taking drugs - Lily Moon, Pansy Parkinson, Hermione Granger, Susan Bones - all of them were long term drug abusers who'd come in and out of rehab so many times over the years, using prostitution to fuel their habit. Tracy knew she was one of the more luckier girls and there weren't that many of them to leave that godforsaken place with her mind intact, but she was grateful her lifelong lover and best friend had seen her through it.

They'd escaped the foster home in their teens, started joining burglary gangs and working with other burglars and safe crackers and bank robbers to try to earn a living in this world where everything looked pristine and tidy on the outside, but was corrupted underneath. When they'd left the foster home, neither Tracy nor Harry could crack a safe, but now they had years of experience and judgement under their belts. Their latest heist had seen them work with a gang of bank robbers - or would be bank robbers - who wanted to make the big time and get rich quickly by hitting a bank.

Tracy and Harry had seen dozens of gangs with delusional dreams of grandeur, seen many of them fall after making some of the simplest of mistakes. The tragic thing was it wasn't just the amateurs who made mistakes and paid for them. Harry and Tracy had both made acquaintances in the world where cat burglars were caught either because they were simply getting too over confident and cocky about their abilities that they simply forgot to keep track of staying a step or two ahead of the law. They'd seen it before, many times, burglars who'd been around for decades, suddenly caught and sentenced on multiple counts of burglary.

Both of them had been lucky that they hadn't fallen with them, but they'd had several close calls over the years. Tracy and Harry had both sworn to never make the same mistakes. But this gang... Neither of them had wanted to really have anything to do with them, the gang members were just a bunch of yobos who spoke trashy because they thought it was cool and hip, but really it came out kind of pathetic. Oh, and they'd loved touching her up. Tracy had slapped a few of them and Harry had come close to losing it big time. Tracy wasn't really offended that Harry had held back once or twice though he'd ended up beating one of them virtually to death to make it clear he wasn't going to take it. Harry wasn't a muscular man, he was more lean and wiry, but he was strong and very tough.

If any man was an able street fighter and a kick boxer, it was Harry Potter. He also knew a few judo and karate moves and a knowledge of anatomy which gave him an edge. Tracy had watched without any kind of surprise or horror as Harry snapped the kids forearm as easily as snapping a pencil in half, a clean break to keep them from touching her again. They had been working with the gang for a month, trying to shift them away from blindly trying to rush into a bank, sawn off shotguns shooting, scaring the staff and customers and holding everyone hostage whilst the staff tried to stall for time and the police just barricaded the whole exit and making everything messy. Tracy hadn't really given a monkeys about the gang, and just felt that maybe she and Harry should leave them. But the gang wouldn't have it, they'd wanted their help since they knew they needed help to reach the big time. Tracy walked into the kitchen where she silently poured water into the kettle, musing about the gang. To start with the gang had reached out to find someone who'd help them, something Tracy thought was a big mistake because it was like pouring a gallon of chum into the sea with a school of sharks nearby. You didn't announce to the world you wanted help to become big, you'd only announce yourselves as amateurs who needed help, but the gang were desperate. They'd already tried using the good old 'barging in guns first trick' and they'd nearly been caught.

It was only a miracle they'd managed to get out though they hadn't told Tracy or Harry how they'd managed to get out when there were armed police just outside the fucking place. Worse, they'd come away with nothing to show for it, only a man hunt. In the end the gang leader had met both her and Harry, sweetening a deal. She and Harry would help them, and when they made their first successful heist. Oh neither Tracy nor Harry had believed the gang leader, they weren't stupid enough for that, no honor amongst thieves and all that. They'd accepted, mentally prepared to betray them at a moments notice. But the gang leader had bought it hook, line and sinker. His lack of experience worried Tracy, but there was a chance he could improve. So for 2 weeks the two of them had tried to teach the gang how to properly rob a bank whilst trying to find an opportunity to make some quick cash at their expense, and while some of them had caught on quick with the lessons the others weren't really paying much attention. They'd been more interested in flirting with her or touching her up. It wasn't until Harry had almost murdered one of them they'd realised they were out of their league. Shame, Tracy had found herself hoping Harry would get into a fight. Some of them were uncouth.

Anyway Harry had grown tired of them as well, though she could tell from his stony expression from the first day onwards had not boded well for the gang. Tracy actually felt they'd been a bit too generous with them personally. To help the gang they'd tried teaching a few time honored tactics where guns were kept at a minimum. She and Harry must've spent hours telling the gang the same thing over and over, but it hadn't sank in. They'd tried to rob an armoured security van as a sort of trial run to help them gain some expertise. Everything had gone off without a hitch until one of the guards used a mobile phone to call the police, and by the time anyone realised what was happening it was too late. They'd only just managed to escape. To make matters even worse, it was the gang members who should have checked to see if the guards were even regaining consciousness. Harry had given them the job, she had given the job to them afterwards just to make sure. They'd had one simple task and they'd blown it. If they couldn't pull off something that simple they had no chance at all. Afterwards, she and Harry had worked it all out. This gang was useless. They had courage, yeah. They had basic skills, definitely, but that was all they had. They had no real interest in learning how to make it bigger and for that reason it would be a miracle if they stayed out of prison, and if anything happened in the time they were with them she and Harry could end up there with them. So they'd made a plan to rob an art gallery rather than a bank, pretending that even though the security guard business was a mistake it had been forgotten for the time being to commit a bigger heist. The plan had been straight forwards enough sincegalleries were easier than banks, though the gang hadn't really seen the point seeing as they wanted to rob a bank.

It never occurred to them it might be a little thing called practice, but there you go. They'd only through with it because she and Harry had insisted, and besides, she and he actually managed to get through the security surrounding the gallery; those amateurs wouldn't manage to get through the first step, never mind get inside one big gallery to steal a number of paintings. But they'd gone along with it, and they'd even managed to grab a few paintings and the price had totted up nicely when they'd been caught by the police! She and Harry had phoned for them after Harry had finished taking the paintings (some of them) out of the van the gang had brought with them to leave as evidence for the cops to further incriminate the gang, and put them into their car. It had been hard for them to escape without being noticed, but they had managed it. The good news was the gang had been busy at the museum at the time, so they had no way of knowing several of the paintings had been nicked from under their noses. It didn't really matter either way, not even if they were questioned. The gang had been caught in the act inside the museum.

There was no way the gang members would find them; no-one really knew where she and Harry lived, so she doubted the gang would find them, and they didn't know their actual names since - touch wood - the cops didn't really know what they looked like thanks to the balaclavas they usually wore when they committed a burglary. The only troubling thing was the gang wouldn't hesitate to rat them out if they found out the truth, how she and Harry had just left them to be caught, they had seen their faces, they knew she worked with Harry even if they didn't really know their names. But they knew enough to give the police a description of their faces, and that could lead to an arrest, but truthfully Tracy hoped she and Harry didn't get caught. They might have been lucky so far, but so had others before them. Tracy was snatched from her thoughts by the sound of the front door opening, and for a second her heart began to race at the sound of Harry's voice speaking to somebody, but it was muffled so she couldn't really make out what was being said. Tracy never really suffered from panic attacks. She was always calm, controlled and thoughtful outside or on robberies she committed with her partner, but the truth was the foster home had left a definite scar on her mind. She hated being confined in places by the authorities who had never really bothered much to ensure the safety of the kids in the place. If the police caught her and Harry and they found out about their other heists, they'd be going away for a long time. Harry returning with the newspaper in his hand made her sigh in relief as she took a few deep breaths under her breath, trying to hide her panic.

Unfortunately, Harry saw it. "What's wrong?" he frowned. Cursing her long term boyfriend for noticing and thankful and pleased he had noticed in equal measure, Tracy sighed and shook her head. "I thought it might've been the police."

"Why would it have been them?"

"The gang," Tracy's voice took an angry undercurrent, "you know they'll blab." Harry sighed and shook his head even as he wrapped his arms around her. "Tracy, the gang don't know our names. They don't know where we live, we made sure to cover our tracks. They only found out about us by chance, and even then we don't hand in our address to different criminals. Okay, so they might just hand in our descriptions, but it's a chance we'll have to take. We might have to sell the house, move somewhere else." Tracy shuddered at the thought of moving from the house. All that stress of solicitors, viewings, waiting for phone calls, packing, finding a new house…..she wasn't sure if she could take it.

Tracy remembered the hell she and Harry had gone through just getting _this_ house. Could she do it again? If she had no choice, definitely, but could they do it in time to stop the police from finding them? Probably not. "We've really got to take better precautions," she mumbled into his chest. Harry said nothing as he let go of his lover and kissed her gently on her lips, but she knew he agreed with her. "Listen, we've made a really big heist. We can't really sell the paintings just yet. They're too hot, but we can put them somewhere safe and wait for an opportunity to sell them. In the meantime we lie low."

"Lie low, no more robberies or heists?" Tracy asked looking at Harry skeptically. "I don't see why not, we've done it before."

"Yeah, only for you to start to rob a small jewelry shop," Tracy retorted, her lips quirking in remembrance of the memory. "That," Harry said, leaning his forehead against hers, "was just a plan at first. Then I went through with it. Anyway we got a lot from it, right?"

Flicking his ear, smirking at his 'ow!' Tracy nodded and grinned before she turned away as the kettle started steaming. "Coffee?"

"Yeah, please," Harry replied, even though she had her back to him she knew he was unrolling the newspaper to look at the front page story. Everything seemed normal until Harry let out a cry. Tracy, who'd been in the process of pouring the milk, ended up spilling half of the bottle!

"Harry!" Harry ignored her. "Tracy, do you remember the Iron Maiden?"

This time Tracy swung round, eyes wide in shock. "The Iron Maiden? I thought someone had it in a collection." Harry nodded. "It is, but it seems it's been passed to another collection." Tracy busied herself with cleaning up the spillage she'd made when Harry's cry startled her, but her mind was turning. "Harry, I remember what you promised, what we promised, but can we really go after the Iron Maiden again?"

The story of the Iron Maiden began in the 1930s. Out of the two thieves only Harry truly knew the entirety of the story, Tracy knew only of the basics behind it. She knew the safe was virtually impregnable, though she didn't really believe that. To her a safe was just a big Chinese puzzle box that had a key to opening it. "Anyway, you never told me the whole story behind it," she commented. Once both of them had their coffees and they were sat down in the living room, Harry took a deep breath. "You know some things about the maiden," he began, "but what do you know about it?"

Tracy blinked thoughtfully. "I know it was built in the 30s, by a craftsman as part of some circus act. I know it has never been opened since, that crackers and burglars have tried to get in, and I remember we spent 4 hours with Devlin trying to get in but that's it. Oh, I know you've kept up with the story and have spent the past 6 years trying to find it again."

"All true. The Iron Maiden was made as part of a circus act and many burglars have tried to get in," Harry replied. He took a sip of his coffee. "After that disaster of a night with Devlin, I read up on the Maiden to learn more about it. I didn't tell you about what I found because my research was sporadic. Much of what I've read looks like stuff made up by cranks hoping to make a tenner, or something. But yeah, it was built in the 30s.

"The man who made it was born into this family of circus performers. They'd been in the circus for 8 generations, and they intermarried with dozens of others in the same circus and in others. They were in every act imaginable, Trace," Harry said. "Acrobats, jugglers, lion tamers, animal training acts, clowns, everything. But around the 20s the family had two brothers born into their tight knit little circus. The youngest boy was born a couple of years after his elder brother, and he fit in the mold easily." By now Tracy had listened and absorbed enough of the story to get an idea of where Harry was going with this.

"And the elder brother didn't?" she surmised. Harry nodded grimly, and Tracy felt his emotions. She felt them as well. At the foster home there was an unspoken agreement to look out for and protect the younger kids. To hear that an older boy in a family she had never heard of being ostracised, if the look on Harry's face was any indication, it really struck in her craw. Harry's next words confirmed it, but there still some doubt in his voice, lurking in the background.

"I'm not sure how bad it was, but the elder brother wasn't treated well by his family. I don't know what the rest of the circus did, but either way it doesn't matter in the end. The elder brother couldn't perform on many of the acts. He was agile, but not agile enough for the acrobatic acts. He could barely stroke a cat or a dog, never mind tame a fully grown lion. From what I have pieced together he was good with the elephants, but not enough for it to be noteworthy. The brother was the opposite, but he doesn't really matter. "The newspaper article," Harry lazily gestured towards the paper he'd brought with him from the kitchen, "just gives the basic story. I'm not even sure if the media knows anything but the basics. The real story is this; the elder brother, the craftsman of the Iron Maiden, was a silver tongued and expert cat burglar and con man."

This was news to Tracy, whose eyes bugged out. "Seriously? He was one of us?"

"I wouldn't go that far, but yeah. He was a burglar. According to some of the research I did for him, I don't know which is an exaggeration or fact, he found he had a good hand for pickpocketing, and in a dark circus it would be pathetically simple to pick the pockets of a cheering crowd. He used the money to put himself through school." Tracy nodded in understanding as she tried to see it from the elder brother's point of view. "That's a good idea. He knew he would get no help from his family, and since it implies no-one else cared he would have to find ways to support himself." Harry looked like he agreed with her. "He put himself through school," he said nothing anymore on the matter of neglect since it was a long time in the past, "and he eventually became a blacksmith's apprentice and by all accounts was good at what he did. He became so good at it that when he forged the Maiden it was said to be 'exquisitely forged.' You don't get that by being sloppy." Tracy shook her head. "Why did he make it in the first place?" "It was because of his younger brother. Apparently he had an act in the circus. It was a safe cracking act," Harry smirked.

The smile disappeared. "The newspaper article tells the story, but it glosses over too much."

"In what way?"

"Is it possible for someone to crack open a safe in under 30 seconds?" Harry countered. Tracy shook her head.

"No, it's not. To really listen to a combination you need peace and quiet, and a healthy amount of concentration. If you know at least a few of the numbers, you could probably guess the combination in time, but 30 seconds?" "Some of the audience probably weren't fooled, but the majority were. I don't think it helped when they saw a melon being put inside the safe and seeing it as a bunch of bananas when the door was opened. I can see ways they did that, but either way there were some people in the audience who did believe he had the skills. Most of them were pro burglary gangs who were just getting started." Tracy blinked as she quickly worked out where Harry was heading with all this. "Tell me they weren't that gullible," she begged. Harry nodded.

"They believed it to be genuine. Anyway, the craftsman came up with a plan. According to the story he went in disguise to watch the act and because he was a burglar and con artist himself, he recognised some of the pro burglars in the audience for who they were. Then it struck him.

"A year later he entered this safe he had built himself for his brother to open into the act for the brother to crack. I think we both know what safe it was," Harry added in a tone that said it should be obvious, and it was. "The Iron Maiden. I remember this bit," Tracy said, "but I didn't know there were burglars who wanted the younger brother to open safes for them to save them the trouble." "Well, there were. They weren't impressed when he failed to open the safe in the allotted time frame."

Harry looked thoughtful for a second. "I think he was relying on someone to hand him the combination, and I think that's how he managed to open the other safes so easily." Tracy went silent as she pictured the scene of the elder brother and the younger brother. She had no way of knowing how the scene had gone by, but it didn't matter; she could make a little play out of it in her own head. In her mind the younger brother appeared arrogant, over confident because of all the praise he'd received over the years, but also because of his successful act though he didn't deserve it. She imagined the scene playing out like this.

"This safe," her version of the man began as he walked around the exquisitely forged statue, "it's beautiful." Her version of the elder brother just nodded quietly, watching as his younger sibling walked around his creation, inwardly contempt at the sight of him fawning over it. Then it all changed. The younger brother stopped looking at the safe for a second, gazed at his elder sibling and asked, "Are you going to tell me the combination?"

"No. If you're so clever you'll figure it out yourself." For some reason Tracy imagined him smirking as he said that. "What?" "Oh, please. Don't tell me you can't even work out the combination just by looking at the dial. Bye," the elder brother was chuckling as he started to walk away. Tracy didn't know whether or not there was a physical struggle, but she decided to play one for the hell of it. "Get back here," the younger brother snapped as he rushed after him.

"Get back here and tell me the combination!" In her mind the younger brother grabbed the older one, uncaring whether it actually happened or not, and swung him around. "Give me the combination now!"

"No, you can do it for yourself," and with that the elder brother simply threw his hated sibling away before turning again and saying over his shoulder, "Good luck." Blinking to get rid of the fantasy she conjured up another one, this time the entire audience of the circus as they watched the younger brother trying to get into the safe.

Picturing the idiots face as he tried to hide his panic under a thinly sprayed demeanor of concentration and focus as he hunched down next to the safe, ear pressed trying to hear the tumblers inside click-click-click away as he turned the dial. But it wouldn't have worked. For some reason Tracy and Harry could not understand the dial and tumblers of the Iron Maiden made that click-click sound no matter which number was turned. It made the whole process irritating. In her mind she pictured the disappointment and anger the burglars to be in the audience had felt when they saw the man fail. All those weeks watching the same act, the man being able to crack open a safe in just 30 seconds, now seeing him for the charlatan he was. And all that time she pictured the elder brother seated in the audience, watching as the apple of his family's eye failed in his act and was now fumbling trying to get the safe open.

Tracy didn't need to ask Harry what happened next; the younger brother was so humiliated he disappeared, though now she knew about the burglary gangs it wouldn't be too hard for her to suspect that one of them had gotten so angry they'd decided to simply kill them and make the body disappear. Tracy didn't know if that little hunch was true or not, but she didn't care so she put it out of her mind. Something else occurred to her. "His elder brother committed suicide sometime around that act, right?" she asked Harry to clarify a point that she knew. "He was suffering from a tumor. He'd had it seen to, but it was too late, the mass started spreading. He must have been in a lot of pain, anyway he did commit suicide. When the audience started protesting when his brother finally gave up with the Maiden, a gunshot just outside showed them what had happened. He'd used a pistol to blow his brains out. There was a note in his hands.

"No-one can get into the Iron Maiden," it said. Well, they were right." Tracy frowned as another point entered her brain. "Harry, he put diamonds in the Iron Maiden for his brother to find, didn't he?" she asked. "Yep. He probably got them from a heist; there's a rumor he committed one after he before he built the Maiden, but the exact time he actually committed it is up to debate," Harry drank some of his coffee and grimaced. It's probably cold, Tracy thought idly. She was proven right when Harry stood up, took their coffees and left. She heard the microwave ping and then he came back. Together they drank their coffees thoughtfully. Tracy smacked her lips. The coffee was piping hot and her tongue felt like it had been scolded. "Harry, what are we going to do with the Maiden? We've tried robbing it before, and we both know we'll get no where with the combination dial. What does that leave?"

Harry shook his head, "We can rule out acid. I heard on the grapevine that just after Devlin and us tried to break into the safe, another burglar tried his hand at using acid. It was Alan Roxton." Tracy let out a laugh at that. "Roxton's an idiot. He doesn't know the first thing about safe cracking."

"He knew enough about where to pour the acid into the lock," Harry countered. "It didn't eat away inside the lock, but it caused a fair amount of damage to the outside. There's got to be another layer of some acid resistant material inside. The bastard who made the damn thing knew what he was doing." Tracy looked away, finished her coffee and thought. Okay, so the combination dial was out, so too was acid. That left simply cutting into the safe or blowing it up. Suddenly something occurred to her. "Harry, I thought the Iron Maiden was in a private collection," she said.

"It was. It was auctioned to this rich guy around the same time we got to it. He had it when Roxton tried acid to break in, and then he moved it somewhere else."

One of the most consistent things to know about this particular safe was that because of its impregnability so many people, mostly playboys, kept it in their homes. Over the years dozens of people had tried to get in. The Maiden had dozens of scars across its surface, reminders of dozens of encounters with people like herself and Harry, from hacksaw blades failing to get through. And now a lock eaten with acid, courtesy of Roxton. The thing to remember with the Maiden was most of these collectors were veteran criminals, mobsters themselves, and the only reason they wanted the Maiden so badly was so then they would have a crack on the safe itself - no safecracker pun intended. Inevitably, they failed, either because of misfortune, but mostly because they simply didn't know how to crack open a safe at all.

It was kind of pitiful someone who had a long criminal record didn't know how to break into a safe, but it was true. Right now Tracy was looking closely at Harry, and saw the look in his face. "What do you plan to do?" Harry sighed. "I know its a long shot, but I'd like to try to crack the dial again." Tracy sighed and shook her head before burying her face in her hand. "I know, I know," Harry protested when he saw what she was doing in exasperation. "But I still want to try it. Devlin never really gave us a chance to really use the dial, and I want to try my luck. It's a long shot, but it's one we have to take." Tracy laughed. "Harry," she whispered. "We've just conned a gang into robbing an art gallery, and dropping them into the police's waiting arms. We should be lying low, not planning a heist that might never happen."

"Who is going to know we're the ones that bunch of amateurs dropped into the clink? We never advertised it, and besides the Maiden is in Brighton. All we have to do is head down there. We'll only be gone a few days." Harry's counter brought Tracy up. "It says that in the paper?" Harry nodded, and handed the paper over to her, and Tracy read the article. He was right. The Maiden was in Brighton, and had been for a few days now, it had been bought at an auction and was now in a museum. It was out of the private collections now, but how long since she didn't know and right now didn't care.

She knew the Iron Maiden would be a tempting target for burglars, if no-one had actually bothered with it now she'd be surprised. For the next couple of days the two thieves were making plans to get to the Iron Maiden, gathering as much intel as they could on the museum it was at.

It was just a simple art gallery, really, but with the Maiden its security had been boosted. Whilst disheartened by this, though she didn't really know why, Tracy was not surprised by the move. It made sense anyone would want to keep the Maiden safe and secure. The Iron maiden's notorious history would make even the stupidest person worried, and as Tracy researched it more she found that the museum had received the Maiden as a donation. The lucky person who was the latest in a long line had simply handed it over to the gallery to show it off as art, but Tracy felt he simply didn't have the room in his home for such a large statue. By the time they'd reached Brighton, Harry had sent Tracy on to inspect the gallery whilst he sorted out the hotel they would stay in. When she returned from her mission she was pleased by what she found. The hotel apartment they stayed in was fairly spacious enough, and offered enough privacy for the couple. There was a kitchenette, a sink, and a fridge. It was just like being inside a basic flat. The only downside was the cleaning staff. Harry wanted to assure them he and Tracy were only going to be with them for a week, but he had to admit it might look a little suspicious them not letting the staff in, so they had to.

Tracy wasn't happy with the arrangements and didn't hesitate to let Harry know what she felt about it all, but then she hadn't imagined it would be a problem. As long as the staff didn't find anything suspicious (how they wouldn't question the presence of crowbars, torches, and picklocks, she didn't know), it would be fine. Either way it didn't matter; the pair of them had decided to spend as much of their time as possible out and about. They had enough money already to truly enjoy themselves, and they planned to have as good a time as possible even if they failed to crack open the Iron Maiden. While she would like getting inside the fucking thing and proving herself as a burglar, Tracy found she didn't really care one way or another if they did break in or not. But Harry did want to break in. He had been closer to Devlin than she had, and when he'd almost had that breakdown due to stress that night it had hit him quite hard. For 3 days whilst they closed their plans to open the Maiden, Tracy enjoyed Brighton. She'd come down here once as a kid, but hadn't revisited the place since. There had been one or two changes, but it was still the same place. Many people might say Brighton & Hove was rough place, a dump, but Tracy didn't see that. She and Harry had grown up in a dump.

They knew what a dump was, and Brighton didn't even come close though there were areas where it did fit the criteria. Actually, she found it charming and realistic - the inhabitants of the city were realistic enough to guess they couldn't alter their surroundings. It was a more pleasing example of the expression 'if it ain't broke don't fix it.' They swam in the sea, tanned in the sun. To onlookers Tracy and Harry were just another couple enjoying themselves, and sometimes they even smiled to themselves when they saw how gentlemanly Harry was with Tracy, how he barely complained when she made him take her shopping back to the hotel. Finally on the 4th night they went out to the museum through a window to avoid anyone realising they'd left, and they used suction cups to get down without dropping a rope ladder for other light fingered thieves to get into their apartment.

Taking with them their bag full of tools - drill, blowtorch and gas supply, a vial of acid which Harry had packed as a precaution since there might be other parts of the safe which weren't invulnerable to acid and she knew he was the last person to try to repeat the mistakes of another idiot, a couple of crowbars, a stethoscope, a tuning fork and a drill, and lastly Devlin's notebook detailing the various combination numbers they'd tried when they'd encountered the Iron Maiden years before, Tracy hoped she and Harry managed to break into the Maiden this time. After 10 minutes of breaking through the security at the museum the pair headed quietly for the Iron Maiden, they had visited the museum at different intervals - Tracy had come to the museum first to merely scout around to understand the geography of the museum and see where the Maiden was being shown, and Harry's visit was purely to see the security arrangements and to scout around the local haunts where other thieves or criminals were making their own plans. Harry's news had not been good when he'd gotten back - quite a few of the local criminals had their own plans to take care of the Iron Maiden, which was why Tracy and Harry wanted to deal with it right away.

Crouched next to Harry, Tracy had the time to examine the Maiden, once more feeling admiration for the man who'd made it. The Iron Maiden was the iron, naturally, statue of a woman in a long flowing dress, in a traditional dancing position, placed ontop of an iron platform with a familiar, boxy form of a classic safe built into the dress part of the statue. The boxy safe, like the rest of the statue, was pockmarked and scratched with numerous marks from dozens of attempts to break past the safe's door, and now looking closely at the lock itself Tracy could see the damage Roxton had caused. Half of the lock had been melted away, but the rest of it hadn't been badly damaged. Sitting down next to the pile of tools they'd packed for this heist, Tracy watched as Harry started to crack the safe, using his stethoscope to listen to the tumblers, his eyes darting between the notebook Devlin had given them years ago and on the dial as his hand gently turned it. By her own sense of time Tracy felt boredom set in an hour into the job, but if she was bored she couldn't even begin to measure the sheer frustration Harry was feeling. She could see it in his face, the anger in his set jaws as his teeth clenched and unclenched as each combination he tried failed each time. Finally he snatched the scope's ear buds from his head and closed his eyes, rubbing them furiously to stave off the headache he was likely feeling. "No good?" Tracy asked, wincing when she saw the look sent her way. Harry sighed wearily. "I've been on this for an hour, and I can't work out the combination. I've tried to reverse and mix and match, still nothing. I'm now guessing my way through." Harry went silent as he became lost in thought.

He might've have been guessing, his hands might've have been itching to reach out to grab the dial and try something new, but he never did. He seemed lost in thought. Tracy cocked her head, curious about what he was thinking about. "I think I'll have to drill it open, or blow it open," he said with a sigh. Tracy sighed when she realised he'd simply given up with the dial and didn't give a damn anymore about proving brain over brawn.

She wasn't surprised by this, she'd expected it and so had Harry, which was why they'd packed so many tools, they'd simply hoped it wouldn't be necessary. Tracy also wasn't surprised when she noted the disheartened expression on Harry's face; she knew how he'd wanted to crack the combination, but she knew he was realistic enough to see it wasn't going to happen. Harry stood up slowly, wincing from the cramp he was feeling in his knees, but he got through it by stamping his feet lightly before he headed over to where Tracy was sitting, though she was already rooting around in the bag for the tuning fork which he'd need to find the most vulnerable points on the safe to blow it open. Once he'd found the fork and walked back to the Maiden to begin tapping, Tracy found the drill and selected a bit, wincing with each tap Harry made with the Maiden. The taps echoed through the room, down Tracy's spine. It wasn't a pleasant feeling. Suddenly he stopped, pausing to look at the safe, but since his back was turned Tracy just couldn't see his face. "What's wrong?" Harry didn't answer, which she knew meant something was wrong, but he didn't know or understand what it was yet. Biting her lip, Tracy knew it would take time for Harry to respond to her questions, she went silent. Finally Harry placed the stethoscope against a different part of the statue, and tapped away, and he did that repeatedly, silently, moving it from one spot to another, tapping away. It took all of Tracy's control to keep herself quiet as Harry did that, but it was close. The tuning fork was a necessary evil at times, but sometimes Tracy wished they'd throw it away. Finally Harry moved up to the neck, and it became clear he was listening to something different as his face dropped into a scowl. He moved it upwards to around the nose, just below the forehead.

Finally, he stepped away, handed her the scope and the fork, and with his hands gently traced over the head. Suddenly Tracy understood what was happening, and she couldn't believe it, but before she could say anything Harry's fingers brushed against something just behind both ears. She couldn't see what his hands did, but she saw the result. Tracy Davis had seen many cons in her time, but she felt this one just took the cake. Hissing from the released air, a line opened down the half of the Maiden's face, revealing a small opening inside an otherwise hollow space with a shelf. There was a small velvet bag inside, with a rolled up paper next to it. "I didn't expect this," Harry whispered, almost reverently at the sight within the safe. Tracy, feeling tired and worn down after spending so long in the museum, just wanted Harry to hurry up. Fortunately for her sense of mind he was aware, and just simply picked up both the bag and the piece of paper; she wondered what it said, but she'd worry about that later. By the time the couple had reached the hotel it was so late Tracy was almost falling asleep even as she followed Harry from one shadow to another. It felt like forever before she was back inside the hotel room; Harry had needed to climb up and fix in an electrical winch to pull her up.

"Come on, let's get you to bed," Harry whispered.

"Mhwaaa," Tracy mumbled under her breath. Tracy was so tired she wasn't really aware of much. She was dimly aware of Harry climbing into the bed with her. She was only just aware of what he was saying to her, but she didn't wake up to the delicious smell of meat waft up her nostrils and tempted her out of her deep sleep and back into the land of the living. She opened her eyes a crack and saw Harry standing over her, dressed in a dark blue shirt and black trousers. He had a smile on his face as he waved a plate with what Tracy quickly realised was a bacon sandwich under her nose. She grinned tiredly back at him.

"What time is it?" she asked as she stretched, keeping watch of him out of the corner of her eye. She wasn't disappointed by the look in his eye, in fact she was pleased and flattered. "10.30, I woke up an hour ago and decided to give you a bit longer. Look, are you planning on getting up anytime soon and eat this?" Harry asked, holding up the plate. Tracy pouted and snatched it off him.

After guzzling down the sandwich and enjoying a quick shower, Tracy came downstairs to the small kitchenette and joined Harry at the table, her eyes going to the small velvet bag perched neatly next to the paper Harry had taken out of the Iron Maiden. A thought occurred to her, and Tracy kicked herself for not thinking about it earlier. "What about the cleaners? They normally come at this time," she asked in near panic as Harry handed her some coffee. Tracy didn't like tea. "Don't worry, I dealt with them," Harry replied before letting his gaze drop to the paper he'd taken from the Maiden the night before.

After watching him read the paper for a good few minutes, Tracy became curious about what it said. "What's it say?" she asked. Harry looked up and let his eyes drop again. "It's basically a letter from the craftsman to whoever's lucky enough to open the Maiden, though it clearly states he hopes its never reopened by anyone."

"That makes sense," Tracy mused thoughtfully over the rim of her mug. "He designed that safe to be a fake, and the first thing everyone tries is the dial. No-one else would think the actual safe is in the head." "Hmm, he also goes on about a few other things."

"Are you going to read it out?" Tracy asked, hiding her exasperation. Harry nodded. "To whomsoever holds this letter, I should say thank you. I had hoped the puzzle of the Iron Maiden would never be solved since it would spoil the humiliation of my dear little brother. Still, it doesn't matter - it just means whoever cracked my little con is smarter than me. Then again anyone who's smarter than my brother alone deserves to read this letter. I hope you're a burglar. I was a burglar myself before I retired because of the cancer riddling my body, and that is the sole reason I've retired. My surgery did not work, not than I expected it to. I only had it done so then I could live a little longer doing what I enjoyed doing - conning & robbing people, and working as a craftsman. Unfortunately, I can't do any of it anymore.

The tumor is spreading and there is nothing more I can do except wait for the inevitable. I pray that, whenever this letter, if this letter is ever seen, that cancer has been completely eradicated. The tumor is terribly painful. "If you are wondering why I made the Maiden, you should know this. My brother was the apple of my parent's eyes, and he could do no wrong. They were ashamed of me and how I couldn't perform even the simplest trick in the circus. But I did learn to pickpocket, and as the years went by I'd accumulated enough to give myself a proper education. I didn't need to be a juggler to be successful. I enjoyed my schooling, and eventually I started being an apprentice to a blacksmith, and became so good at it I no longer needed my parents to support me. Not that I needed them to. Burglary was also my income, and I imagine I was a late developer when it came to agility. Over the years the gulf between me and my family grew to the point where I didn't see or hear from them for years. But when I did, I was on holiday in Yorkshire. It was there I heard my brother had a new act - safecracking. I stayed near the circus for around a week, and I saw my brother work under disguise. "I don't care if his brain is wired that way, it is impossible for anyone to crack a safe open unless they have some numbers. Anyway, I sat whilst the crowd went wild, and I continued to watch. I must have used two disguises before I saw my uncle give my idiot brother the combination of another safe."

"Yorkshire? You know this is the first time we've learnt where he first saw the safecracking act, we knew he'd seen his brother crack open the safe, but we didn't know where," Tracy commented.

Harry nodded, "Yeah. It's also the first time we found out for ourselves that the hunch was right, someone did tell him the numbers to the safes he cracked open though we both knew it already." He went back to reading. "Anyway, I decided to humiliate him, though at the time I didn't know how. I knew it would need to involve a safe of some sort, I just didn't know what to do. Then it struck me when I was stealing a Chinese puzzle box a month later after I'd returned to London, I would con him. I worked for weeks, months on the project, designing and redesigning the Ultimate safe. I have always been an artist, iron and metal has always been my speciality, so I wanted to impress the crowd by giving them a beautiful statue in the shape of a woman. I won't bore you with how long it took me to make the moldings for the Maiden.

"I built the fake safe into the statue, the real one was in the head. Hopefully no-one will know about what I have done. I wrote a letter to my family and let them know I knew about their newest performance, before telling them about the Maiden and how it would be good to watch my brother actually get inside. I sweetened the deal by letting them know I'd placed real diamonds inside, all his if he could get inside. The diamonds were, of course, my last robbery. But what better way of putting them to good use? Needless to say I watched my brother's humiliation in the audience. Then I went out and shot myself to end my pain and to finally have a smile on my face for outsmarting my brother and family." Harry finished by saying the name of the craftsman, the actual name rather than his nickname.

"Doesn't really tell us much more than what we already know or guessed," Tracy said in disappointment. Harry nodded. Oh well, she thought to herself. They'd managed to rob the Iron Maiden, though not in a way they'd imagined.


End file.
